In the Skype group, we were talking about how people usually write city, state in their websites but web users usually search city state (no comma). The conversation drifted into a discussion about how search engines would parse the comma. We thought it would be a great idea to take a look at comma vs no comma when writing city and state and see which is better.
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We were talking about this in a Skype group where when you write Dallas, Texas or Dallas Texas, does it make a difference if you put that in your H1 or not? The reason is that, nobody searches with a comma or probably very few.
When people put in city and state, to be specific, they probably just write Dallas Texas without the comma. But a lot of people, because it is grammatically correct, will write Dallas, Texas in their H1s or meta, or when they are writing it on their site. Are they doing themselves a disservice? Would it be better, especially on those heavy signal areas, to not put the comma.
The other thing is that, Ted made a good point about the comma, how search engines may parse the comma and seeing it as not the same phrase, they wouldn’t see it as Dallas Texas as the same thing, Dallas would be independent then there is that comma that causes that break and then Texas.
The idea here is that, is it possible that you can actually get an edge by not putting in the comma at all. Like in your H1 you put in Dallas Texas all the time because that is going to match the serps and it will help search engines not parse this phrase incorrectly.
To do this set up, what we’ve got is Boise Idaho Mechanics and I am using a fake keyword as though it is a brand name, essentially, is the concept here. Then ran the same way for Phoenix, just choosing the other direction – Fake Keyword Plumber Phoenix Arizona.
After indexing and setting them up, we went with the three and two so we can see some movement and see if we could see a lot of movement in this serp and it basically went all over the place. Initially, the no comma was winning when we ran this with the Boise Idaho and there, the page hit first, and I was really getting pumped about it and then Phoenix came in with the comma. I doubt that the comma is location specific.
Like if you are in Boise, don’t use the comma but if you are in Phoenix, use it. I do not think it works like that. Then just for fun, I also did the search on its own to maybe see something there and the no commas won but I do not really think that is something. Nothing at all.
The biggest thing here is, don’t sweat this out. This is nothing to worry about. Write it how it is appropriate, write it how it makes sense to write it on the page. We cannot get and edge, but it is also nothing to worry about. These things come up in Facebook groups all the time. Don’t sweat it. We know that it is a non-factor here, write it the way that it is most appropriate and has most sense for your copy because it is not a factor either way.
Dori: Which makes sense too, because we discovered that Google doesn’t really care about grammar.
Exactly right. It is an argument that you can hear people make, writing down Dallas, Texas is grammatically right and that is what Google likes. Then you have the computer nerd that says comma actually makes it a different thing so searches prefer no comma.